Ricky Wilson quits The Voice – ‘I don’t think ITV would want me’

The Kaiser Chiefs frontman lines up for his last series of the singing competition

Kaiser Chiefs frontman Ricky Wilson has announced that he will not be returning to The Voice following the final, fifth series with the BBC, which will air in January 2016.

The BBC recently lost the singing competition to ITV, who already broadcast The X Factor, and Wilson believes they won’t want him as a judge. “They would want to have a totally new show,” he told The Sun and stated that he wished to “bow out gracefully”.

Wilson expressed that he thought the BBC should have competed to keep The Voice. “It’s the only way things get better,” he explained. “It’s a huge part of people’s lives. It’s what the great British public want on their Saturday night. They don’t want to be force-fed something educational.

Jenn Five/NME

Apart from Black Eyed Peas member Will.I.Am, Wilson is the longest serving judge on the show, after Sir Tom Jones was axed over the summer, which Jones spoke candidly about. “I said, ‘I don’t give a fuck’,” the Welsh singer told the Sunday Times last month. “I enjoyed it, but if they don’t want me any more, they can go fuck themselves.”

Earlier this year the Kaiser Chiefs unveiled the video for new single ‘Falling Awake’ and played a series of festivals, as well as supporting Foo Fighters on their stadium tour. The Leeds group also revealed they were working on the follow-up to 2014’s Number One LP ‘Education, Education, Education & War’.

Wilson told NME: “The writing is going well. Whatever the schedule is, we’re ahead of it. On the last album, we were quite nervous without (departed drummer) Nick (Hodgson). We didn’t know if we could go on the right track without him. We just did it from the heart and that went really well. But this time we’re enjoying it a lot more, not worrying so much.”